Interview: Iris DeMent

There are many heroes of human dignity sown into Iris DeMent’s latest album, Workin’ on a World — John Lewis standing at the Edmund Pettus Bridge; Rachel Corrie standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer; the congressional women of “The Squad” holding the line; and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holding forth to stay the course “till justice rolls down like water.”

There are horrors too — black men killed by police; climate change denial; false prophets; and divisive discourse.

But DeMent, who performs Thursday, April 13, at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, resists calling this — her first collection of original songs in a decade —a political album. Nor did she deliver these songs as a call to action, despite their reverberation back to folk anthems of social change and resistance. Instead, the Iowa-based songwriter says they began as a way of bolstering her own determination, and to keep moving forward in a world where just putting one foot in front of the other can be hard.

Iris DeMent: “I think [it’s] sort of the natural result of deciding to live, [what] happens to us when we decide we're not going to jump off the bridge. ‘Well, what are you going to do instead?’ So, it's just sort of a natural outgrowth of that decision and that commitment. You just keep on loving the world and loving the other folks in it, who I share this place with, and doing my best by them. So, it did result in a hopeful feeling record but I was trying to meet a need within myself.

It's a combination of my inner workings and how they meet up with the world that's supposedly outside of me. I don't know that I can ever separate the two, which is also why I've always had trouble with the term ‘political songs.’ These things are very close to home.”

The album’s opening title track reflects that soul searching. In the first words, there’s  precious little room for the sun to shine in: “I got so down and troubled, I nearly lost my head/I started wakin' every morning, filled with sadness, fear, and dread/The world I took for granted, was crashing to the ground/And I realized I might not live long enough, to ever see it turn around.”

But by the end of the verse, DeMent is thinking about all those before her who made the choice to get up and keep going, and the chorus finds her joining the good fight: “I get up in the mornin' knowing I'm privileged just to be/Workin' on a world I may never see.”

Workin’ on a World moves at an upbeat but determined pace, driven by DeMent’s blend of folk, gospel, and country — and of course her instantly distinctive voice. The sound is warm and convivial, with DeMent and her piano surrounded by longtime collaborators on mandolin, organ, bass, pedal steel, and a smoothly subdued horn section. The songwriter reports that with the exception of the horns and mandolin, the tracks were recorded live with all the musicians in the room together. The effect can be felt in the record — the kind of musical interplay that happens when artists can watch and listen and respond to one another.

“That's part of what you're picking up on: that exchange between real-life humans, each of them bringing their own unique voice to the song to the room. We’ve done many weeks on the road together, and all of them had worked with me on previous records, so there was a lot of familiarity — a family feeling going on there. The more I go along in life, I’ve noticed how important it is for me when I'm singing and trying to make music that I feel a support that goes beyond just talent. Talent’s a really important skill, but to feel I'm in a room with people that are on board with that — that we have a shared mission and that we're supporting each other in those deeper, more meaningful kinds of ways.”

Sharing with others — be it in the studio, on a record, or on the road — is something that seems at the center of everything DeMent brings to her work. It’s the yardstick she measures her songs by, and the thing that keeps her coming back to the stage. And when she speaks to it, she holds that sentiment up high. The heroes she references on Workin’ on a World are as human as she is, and she’s as human as anyone else. And we are all trying together.

“It's ultimately [about] the ‘us’ for me, you know? If this song doesn't speak to the overall, the ‘us,’ for me they just don't hold up very long. So the point is to communicate with others. I've got to put out something that's… I'm hesitating from using the word ‘universal.’ I think that's a mistake, but something ‘human.’”

That ethos is not a new one for DeMent. Since she launched her recording career in 1992 with the album Infamous Angel, DeMent has pondered these kinds of questions. On that record’s  “Our Town,” the “sun’s setting fast” and “hearts are bound to die.” On her follow-up, My Life, “No Time to Cry” shows her finding a way to endure through hardship, death, and life’s daily tribulations. But the active ingredient in DeMent’s particular salve is that she can wrap those misgivings in a sweet song. In her songwriting process, she carries on that conversation sitting at the piano. Though the guitar is often considered the de facto instrument in both folk and country, DeMent finds her connection on the keys, and the instrument is central on Workin’ on a World.

“I first started writing when I was 25, and until I was about 30, I didn't own a piano, so most of those songs were written on guitar just out of necessity. I don't consider myself to be a guitar player. But as soon as [or] anytime that I got access to  piano, that's where I always headed. And I still do. That was my first instrument. I'm very happy in front of a piano. I feel very at home. And I'm certainly not a master of the piano, but I sure feel friendly with it and I'm very comfortable there.”

DeMent, like so many other musicians in the past few years, hit COVID-related snags during the recording process for what would become Workin’ on a World, and she says the early sessions weren’t even focused on making a record. But as she laid down more songs, she began to wonder if there was an album in there. And having worked as an artist through dramatic changes in the business of recording and selling records, she weighed the real financial cost. In the end, it was that need to share and connect that won out.

“I thought, ‘If you're going to spend $120,000 making a record and you're probably never going to get that money back, you better make sure that these songs are worthwhile.’ So, I would say that hung over me in a big way, and I was intent on having… it turned out to be 13 songs that I feel can really sink in the person's soul and help them along in life. Whether I make my money back or not, I will forever feel good about that, and that was my standard.”

Once she was able to, the songwriter rounded up that familiar family of musicians, and they got into the studio to play together and create the connections DeMent holds dear.

“It's so wonderful to share. It feels so good. So much of our lives are becoming so isolated compared to what they used to be. It's a precious thing to go into a room with five or six people you know without any distractions and just apply yourselves to something that you believe is meaningful.”

And, DeMent says, she’s intent on bringing that same sense to the stage.

“I've always been a reluctant performer, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to ride out the rest of the way as a reluctant performer. When I start singing and the people are there, something opens up like it doesn't anywhere else in my life. So, I'm very happy to be out there and to share these songs, and just share the room and the space with folks.”

IF YOU GO

Who: Iris DeMent with Ben K. Lochen
When: Thursday, April 13, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, worthamarts.org
Tickets: $35.50-42.50 

(Photos by Dasha Brown)